Friday, November 30, 2007

NEW STUDIO: I thought it was time that I gave you a glimpse of the new place and my gorgeous new studio seemed the obvious place to start. I will show you some of the rest of the house later on but we still have not really unpacked and set up properly.

I can't wait to get some things up on the wall and to get my inspiration pin board up and going. I still have to bring my big art drawers over and and a few other things, so no doubt I will post some pictures of my progress.

I just love this drawing table! My gorgeous husband gave it to me for my birthday and I have been wanting to give a permanent home where I can leave it set up all of the time. It's just wonderful to have the space to finally do that.

NEW PROJECT:

And on the drawing board today is an exciting new project I have just started this week. I am so thrilled to have been approached by a new book publisher to illustrate the first of what we hope will become a new series. I obviously can't say to much, but it's my first full colour book and I am so excited! As usual it's a pretty tight deadline so I am still pretty flat out, but am just loving it! Sorry no pictures, but it's due out early next year, so I will of course do a feature on it then! YAY!

Have a wonderful weekend and I am off to check my files to see if I can pull something together for the Illustration Friday topic! It's such a great theme this time (ZOO) but I just don't seem to have enough hours in the day to keep up with it!

Monday, November 26, 2007

Yes - we finally have a phone connection at our new place so this sees the welcome return of Inspiration Monday.

I also have lots to tell you, so hopefully over the next week or so I can post some images of my lovely new home, get stuck back into Illustration Friday, and reveal some details of an exciting new project that I am about to undertake.

Sticking with my local theme, I wanted to show you some gorgeous products by a local company called Little Kitchen.

They not only have a wonderful range products such as hampers,and aprons but they also offer organic cooking classes for children and teenagers. Some of their products are exclusive to their website, while others can be found at their store in North Fitzroy or other selected stockists.

Check their website for full details and some great Christmas gift ideas.

Making up for a few missed Mondays, I thought I'd continue the "food" theme with some great products I re-discovered over the weekend on a day trip to Daylesford in Victoria. Lark is actually based in Daylesford and their workshop creates fabulous vintage handcrafts.

These doughnuts are actually baby rattles and are just irresistible!

Craft lovers will enjoy the vintage fabrics on sale through their website, and it's worth spending some time exploring this site!

That's all for now, but check back in next week for some more cool stuff.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

No I am not back on line yet, but I found myself with a free afternoon (FINALLY!) to access the internet and discovered that the lovely Kelly over at Property Of Kelly had tagged me to reveal 5 things about myself so I thought it would be a great excuse to post again this week.

Please forgive the self indulgence, but I have not posted an image for so long that my page was looking boring (hhhmmm must put up that new banner I designed a few weeks ago) so I found a vague enough link to use this image:

So here we go - 5 Random things about me:

1. I love the beach, but am scared of seaweed!

I can't stand things brushing up against me in the water, and hate the thought of getting tangled up in sea weed. Despite being a strong swimmer I rarely go out beyond where I can touch the bottom. My husband has introduced me into boogie boarding (which I love), so am getting braver.

2. This one is sort of related to the above, but I have REALLY soft feet! I mean soft "bottom" of my feet! Once again, despite growing up in the country I ALWAYS wore shoes! I even swam in the river in shoes! (Maybe this is why I hate the whole seaweed thing!?) Now can barely even walk on grass without shoes! I feel every little prickle or stone and just wind up screeching "ouch, ooh, ah" the whole time....hhhmmmm yes this can be a problem at the beach with the shells......hhhmmmmm not much of an Aussie am I?!

3. I have this weird thing (as if the previous two weren't weird enough!) about eating tomatoes! I will eat them "in" foods like spaghetti, or in a salad sandwich, but I wont eat them on their own. If I eat a salad I will only add tomatoes on my plate for colour so that the meal looks visually pretty and appealing! And you know what - people always notice that I have left them on my plate at the end and ask me why I don't like tomatoes.....and it just gets too hard to explain....even now I can't explain why!

4. I ALWAYS take a jumper (pullover, sweater...etc for you internationals!) with me where everI go! Yes even in Summer. I cant stand being cold and even in summer the air conditioning can be too cold for me, or in Melbourne the weather can change so quickly, therefore, I always travel prepared!

5. It's been about 10 years since my legs have seen the light of day! I pretty much where jeans EVERY day regardless of the temperature. Can you imagine how much light my legs reflect when I do actually get them out in the sun (there's that whole beach thing again - no chance of anything ever really brushing up against me in the water as the glare from legs scares off anything within a five mile radius anyway!!) I have been trying over the last year or so to wear things other than jeans or pants, but not doing too well. This summer I am going to try to buy (AND WEAR) some shorts! (And yes those of you in my netball team should feel privileged to be glimpsing my legs for 40 minutes once a week - it's a rare sighting!)

Sorry to write a novel but it turns out I am more weird than random, and I felt the need to explain everything....I really am normal deep down!?

So here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as wellas links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

....and as it turns out I have been off line so long that I appear to be the last on tagged for this (or I really do have no mates!) and most of my blogging friends have already had this one, so here's my incomplete listing of people I tagged:

Shannon Who "forgot" my previous tag for the Design Meme workspace thing, so who now owes two tags!

Lara Whose blog I am quite new to, (and am still a bit shy to leave comments on).... but I really enjoy reading and would like to know a little more about in a Random/Weird sense!

Leslie Another blog I frequent but am shy of commenting on - she is another very talented crafty Melbourne-ite

But check out these guys who have already been tagged - there's some funny reading amongst this talented lot too:

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Well I can not believe how much I am missing blogging! For someone who was so nervous about even starting this, I am now really missing it! We are still not connected to the phone at our new place! The phone guy came out to connect yesterday, only to discover that the external phone lines out on the street had not been linked to our property yet! It's a bit of a waiting game now to see when they can do this!!

So unfortunately I am still limited as to when I can do my posts! But in a sense it has worked out really well. I am flat out at the moment with work and we have not even had a chance to move all of our stuff yet! It's been pretty busy socially too (FINALLY!) so it's been a bit crazy all 'round!

I am working on another season of pyjamas and am so happy with how the have come up! I think the are my best yet! Am planning to ask permission to be able to post some of the images soon, so will let you know how I go.

This Friday night I am attending a cocktail party with the book publishing company I am working with so it should be a great chance to network and to meet some of the other illustrators and authors. I hope I can tell you all about it next week.

I am missing Illustration Friday too, so am hoping all will be back to normal next week.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Well we have officially moved into our new house (I promise to post some pictures and a proper write up on the whole dream like experience soon - it still feels like we are holidays in someone else's house!)...but we still don't have the phone lines connected. I have managed to get external access today and hope to be up and running again by the end of this week....maybe even broadband!!? Eeeh-gad, yes it's true! I have been on dial up this whole time!!

Sorry to everyone who was expecting my "Inspiration Monday" posting this week! I promise I will make up for it asap with a special extra large feature.